Wii Fit

For its E3 presentation yesterday, Microsoft brought out the remaining Beatles and showed off Project Natal, a piece of technology straight out of the “Minority Report.” At its press event, Electronic Arts brought out tennis legend Pete Sampras and a stage full of Jedi warriors. Ubisoft had James Cameron, Pele and a cool new camera accessory for the Wii.

Nintendo … Well, Nintendo today showed off a glorified pulse meter. The company’s presentation included no celebrities, few real surprises in terms of games or new accessories and was kept to a relatively curt 72 minutes.

With a feature in the pipes and Danny busy, there wasn’t much original content this week. We had the weekly stuff like the Time Waster and an occasional series called Grading the Box Art, but other than that, this is the best of odd ball video game news we could find on the Web.

We didn’t post on this, but it’s important we do. The New York legislature is advancing a bill that would put more regulations on video games, according to GamePolitics. It seems fairly strict, requiring “new console systems to be equipped with parental controls.” (some already do.)

What was the difference? DeLorenzo worked out with the Wii Fit at least 30 minutes every day. He made it part of the daily fabric of his life. It was small and constant improvement.

His success reminded me of a New Yorker that talked about the secret to Toyota’s success. Writer James Surowiecki didn’t talk about giant leaps of innovation or moments of brilliance; instead, he touched on the Japanese concept of kaizen, or continuous improvement.

In the same way, the process of losing weight with Wii Fit involves this kaizen. It seems as if DeLorenzo’s gains weren’t necessarily made through one huge leap after another. It was a steady approach, and it seems that’s the way that works best.

Is Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto the equivalent to a modern day Walt Disney?
Well, the New York Times makes a convincing argument. In a profile on the creator of Wii Fit, New York Times’ Seth Schiesel takes a look at the man, the myth, the legend, using glowing words like “living god in the game world.”

You sort of get a little insight into how he creates games. Miyamoto talks about how he creates gameplay scenarios first, then characters second. It also talks about his transformation in terms of subject matter. He’s gone from a whimsical man who stomps on turtles to more realistic subjects like yoga and pet care.

I’ve been playing with Wii Fit for the past couple of days. One of the first things I did other than weigh myself and do a couple of yoga exercises is put my dog on it. I’ve been curious about how much she weighs and what Wii Fit would say about her.

I stuck her on. She (Her name is Bitsy) was pretty good about it. I inputed her height as 1 foot 8 inches. I put her as being born on April 15 (her adoption day) and her year (approximately 2005). Wii Fit weighed her and oh Lord, it said good old Bitsy was obese.

Sad, sad news. No more treats for her …

Check out our review of the game in the Thursday edition of Time Out in the Contra Costa Times.

One of the better games on Wii Fit was the skiing. You stepped on the Balance Board and leaned left or right, forcing your character to slalom down a hill. It took a while to get used, but it was a fun little game.

Well, NamcoBandai takes that concept and apparently moves that one step further with the announcement of We Ski. This game uses the Balance Board and the Wii remote and nunchuk for I presume the pole stick thingies(yes, I know nothing about skiing).

According to NamcoBandai, you can your own Miis or customize one of Namco’s own characters. In addition, the game allows up to four players on a single split-screen. If they can make the experience realistic enough, We Ski may be a nice post-Wii Fit pick up in the spring.

Nintendo developer Takashi Aoyama detailed the development of the Wii menu and WiiWare early, I mean real early, this morning and revealed some interesting trivia surrounding the still-hard-to-find console.

When you buy the Wii Fit(slated for May 19), the game will create a Wii Fit channel that will be used to track your progress.

Other games will have the ability to create their own channels, which will stay on the system even if another game is playing.

With a new interface update, games will be able to send messages at specific times.

There will eventually be the opportunity to open links sent through messages. It will open the Internet Channel.

The call of the Japanese bush warbler was the inspiration for blue glow that the Wii has when it gets a message. The warbler’s call sinks perfectly with the rhythm of the glow. Weird.

You can use your favorite photo as the icon for the Photo Channel.

In Japan, there’s a Nintendo Channel where you can get screenshots and videos of new games. You can also rate titles as long as you record more than one hour of play time, and judging your tastes, the Nintendo computers will try to recommend you games that suit your playstyle (just like Amazon!). You can also download Nintendo DS titles. Aoyama didn’t say whether these are emulated on the Wii or sent via WiFi to the DS. The Nintendo Channel is planned for the United States and Europe.

WiiWare is meant to be a complement to box games. There aren’t any demos, but you can take a look at the manual before you buy it.

WiiWare (slated for May 12) will have strict size limitations.

Add-on content for disc-based games will be through the title and not via the Wii shop.

There are plans for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay and Play program. He didn’t give a lot of details on this but the logo is the same except it’s red or maybe even pinkish and it says “Pay and Play” on the bottom.

During the presentation, Aoyama also showed off one of the WiiWare titles called Lost Winds and it was different from what I expected. I thought the WiiWare titles would be simple one-screen minigames, but this looked like a full-blown title. Players move a character with a nunchuk and use the Wii remote like a DS stylus, drawing circles around enemies and such. It kind of reminds me of Okami.

On the show floor, I got to try Wii Fit. They made you take off your shoes, and there were some fun balance games. It didn’t exactly wow me in the same way Spore: Creatures did. It had it’s moments. I liked the skiing game and the Marble Madness-ish game wasn’t so bad.